


Upon Once A Time

by Nope



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-05-01
Updated: 2003-05-01
Packaged: 2018-12-23 10:53:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11988324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nope/pseuds/Nope
Summary: Narcissa attends the opening of Dean's exhibition. Painting ensues.





	Upon Once A Time

It's always now, he thinks, and paints.

~

Narcissa does not speak, stands in the window, one arm across her breasts, the other hand touching a finger to her lips, stands watching the rain against the glass while Lucius lies so still he might as well be dead.

~

Dean is fifteen and in Potions and watches Neville, because everyone is watching Neville, looks like a Neville, and then Dean is watching Malfoy watching Neville, which no one else is, and Malfoy whispers, just shapes on his lips really, and Neville stammers but answers Snape correctly, answers in the face of Snape's glare and mounting ire, answers and, afterwards, is flushed but triumphant and Harry pats him on his back and Ron impersonates the Potions Master to the delight of onlookers and later Malfoy is calmly taking Pansy's money, sneering at bets, crowing at victory, announcing that he can teach birds to swim and fish to breathe air and, smirking, even Potter to dance, and later still he is smiling, Malfoy actually smiles at Neville, lips curling across the Great Hall, and Neville nods gratitude from inside the admiring crowd and there is, just briefly, something more, something crackling between them, a bolting arc of tension, and even later than all this is Dean at twenty-one, remembering it all in one continuous burst, in a single held breath, and he brings the brush down onto canvas and immortalises the intersections of flesh.

~

(And the first time he touches her, really touches her, his fingers leave charcoal on her skin.)

~

At the centre of the gallery show, six by eight feet of painstaking monochrome, abstract; it is not his first choice, perhaps not even his choice at all. But Seamus likes it, says he doesn't understand it but he likes it, says "It makes me--" and trails off into a shrug and a shy, almost apologetic smile. Repeats: "I like it." So Dean hangs it and after the rush of the opening begins to grate, begs off from the crowd and comes before it to sit in a corner with his sketch pad and watch.

~

Narcissa is wearing a loose gown that follows her movements in falling waves, gold silk gliding, and she pushes open the French windows, steps out onto spell warmed stone, out from under the green canvas awning, steps out into the rain, turns her face up, raises her hands, mouth open, drinks in the darkness of the storm.

~

Dean is eleven and moving to take his seat under a talking hat and it seems half the people around him are still cheering Harry Potter and he's so small and they're all so big, the whole hall is too big, the ceiling is full of stars and he just knows the hat isn't going to say anything, because he's not a Wizard, he's just a useless Muggle, just another stupid n-- but the funny Irish boy catches his eyes, grins at him from the table on the far left and he feels a little better for that, and he sits and the hat says Gryffindor and there's a cheer and he's cheering too at twelve for the house cup and thirteen too, and at fourteen he's drinking a toast to Cedric and fifteen for his O.W.Ls and at sixteen he's pushing Neville towards Draco across the dance floor and Hannah Abbott thinks that's just so sweet of Dean and later the cheer's loud in his head and he's hilt deep in her, and at seventeen there's the cheer for his N.E.W.Ts and at eighteen he's at a loss, interning in some dead end Ministry job and drunk and dancing with Seamus in some club somewhere and some pretty punk girl with pink hair tells him about her work at the Slade and Seamus tells her that he, Dean, is an amazing artist and she smiles, good cheer, and suddenly he's nineteen and doing his Masters and twenty comes and goes in their London flat and he surfaces only briefly for cake and wishes before the oils have him again and when he looks up he's only just twenty-one and sharp Draco and round Neville are contrasting nicely for the portrait and Draco is saying something about Goyle and a gallery Neville apparently owns and Neville blushes and Dean's not quite twenty-two and the talk of the town and they cheer his entrance and there's hustle and there's bustle and there's no air, he can't breathe in the crowd, in the crush, and finally escapes gasping into his sketchbook, and then there she is and everything stops.

~

(And she arches up into him, sharp, almost involuntary, and his quick tongue licks away the sweat that blooms at her throat.)

~

The Minister comes so everyone comes, until the gallery is more people than pictures, and almost everyone stops first at the triptych, at Ron and Hermione but mostly at his Harry, the Harry of his youth, Harry the room-mate, neither Saviour or Beast, Harry before he turned, Harry, central and black and white and just the softest touch of green, just enough to make the eyes burn. Almost everyone stops first at Harry and if Dean wasn't so nervous he might find insult in that.

He's sharing the exhibition with Gregory Goyle and the Pink girl with the foreign name he's never quite managed to pronounce. Goyle's work is gothic and vicious and somehow still optimistic, laced with hope. Pink works in 3D and talks a good game but one somehow suspects the politics is just there to hide the mockery, answering 'Who cares?' to 'Is it Art?'. Dean's work, the Arts editor of the Daily Prophet airily informs him, is representational, informed by the neoclassical, the new romantics and the realists, accessible, empathic, evocative, exquisite, words, more words; Dean shrugs, says "I just like people" and there is laughter, though he means it, and claps on the shoulder and, later, articles praising his modesty, none of which he reads, busy, his hands on her, writing himself into her skin.  
~

Narcissa stands, slick in the rain--

~

"It's brilliant," says Neville.

"A great success. Congratulations," says Susan.

"Fan-bloody-tastic. Seriously," says Lee.

"You're no Goyle but I suppose you have a certain simplistic talent," says Pansy.

"We, um, we like to, ah, to encourage the arts, yes, the Arts," says the Minister of Magic.

"Muggleborn," says Lucius. "Diluting our culture," says Lucius. "A threat to our stability," says Lucius. "To our security," says Lucius. "To our way of life," says Lucius.

"Father," says Draco.

Narcissa does not speak.

~

(And his fingers slide along her collar bone, curl against her breasts, tease nipples, lips at her jaw, at the corner of her mouth, soft against hers and hard and her sharp tongue is in his mouth.)

~

Lucius smiles thinly, weight on his cane, the smirking set of his features making the gesture look insolent instead of weak, feels the eyes that slide over him, their whispers, the fear upon them; he enjoys the spectacle; his presence correctly commands attention; and they look at him as he looks at the art, looks and dismisses, the Polish girl's hate is too shallow, too all encompassing to intrigue him, and there is too obvious a sentimentality to Goyle's otherwise almost intriguing work, and then the Mudblood, of course, dismissed summarily, out of hand, except this last piece, this, black and white and large.

It is not complex -- or, rather, it is, but the complexity is deliberate, controlled, like an orchestral movement, like mathematics. deliberation in the spacing, control in the lines and folds, logic in the rise and fall and osculating curves, paint and canvas bent by will and imagination into reality, into highest order. And Lucius wants it, wants control, wants to have it, to be had by it, controller and controlled; he needs it; craves this submissive symmetry, so often denied; and in his head he sees snakes and skulls leap from his wand, Muggles screaming and himself, the Dark Lord with his Crucio and Potter too, Potter at the end and Imperio and going down to his knees, the wand and the pain and those eyes and standing there in the gallery he is harder than he has been in years.

~

The pad is not quite white, almost cream, and Dean draws on it in gold, just gold and a scarcity of lines, sketches negative space, just the shape of her, not her, not directly, yes he was a Gryffindor but he's not quite so brave as all that, marks out the shape she makes in the air, caressing edges, defines an aura of influence that she alone and uniquely fills, a setting for some unparalleled precious stone that he can not touch for fear of tainting, can not, will not look at directly, fear of blindness, peripheral staring and his moving hands, lifting her from the plane, decked in light, obeisant gestures charming her into existence, and her cry stabs straight into the core and even before he's really heard her words or consciously recognised her presence or thought about the response he's automatically giving, he's looking up and their eyes meet and everything stops.

~

The brush is just wet enough to slide, just dry enough for perfect friction and on the canvas all time is now.

~

"Stop that!"

"Mm?" Hands still moving. "What? I mean--" Looking up.

"Stop--" Eyes meet.

Silence and flushed skin; invisible heat; eventually, both looking away, Dean speaks. "I-- Sorry, I--"

"No, I shouldn't have--" Apologetic, backtracking; fumbles for an explanation; gestures: "you were... and I--"

"Were?" Looking down: the page, like a sign; sudden disgust. "Oh! Ohh-- No, you're right, you're right, I shouldn't-- I mean-- sorry--" Shakes head. Pulls at the page; tearing.

"No!" Too loud, trying, softer, "I mean, you don't have to--"

"No, I--" Shakes head, can't find the words. "I shouldn't have--"

"Really." Touching a finger to the top of the pad. "You don't have to."

Embarrassed smile. "Sorry."

"I just-- I would prefer not to be drawn like... well--"

"No, it's me. I was taking liberties. I should have asked."

"Yes." Suddenly decisive, "You should ask."

Momentary confusion; then grinning, "I was wondering if you might do me the honour of allowing me to possibly draw you?"

"I would like that." A small smile; sudden disquiet. "Not like this though." Waving a hand at the surroundings. "Properly."

"A sitting, perhaps?" Hopeful smile. "For a portrait? I have a studio--"

"Oh! Yes, exactly--"

"It'd be a little more, well..."

"Appropriate?" Suggestive. "--Intimate?"

Flashed grin. "Something like that."

"Tomorrow?"

"I'm free whenever you want me." Quickly looks down, cheeks hot.

Indulgent chuckle. "Well, then, Mister Thomas; it's a date."

~

\--the rain, opens herself to it, opens her gown, caresses her shoulder as it falls, gold whispering at her hips and the rain on her, in her, and she slides her fingers in its wake, slides them along and over and down, drawing lines in tortured flesh, spreading herself, easing in first and middle fingers, easing into this act, this primal urge, both base and profound, easing into the rhythm the rain beats on her flushed skin, easing and surpassing, faster now, anticipating the hits, waves of gooseflesh creeping across her, wet and gasping and storm clad, this woman alone, this Narcissa, this always, and forever alone.

~

For Draco, it is fear, this painting; it only looks like vanity. At first glance it appears to be self-indulgence, an obvious exercise in craft, all about the methodology; but it draws in the eye and he stands so close he has to move his head to follow the waves and curves and lines that leap and vanish in the grey swirling sheen; and here is desolation, here despair; alone in bitter spirals; he feels it in his stomach, dragging, like tides, like black water and a deep, endless rushing, like everything's falling apart, aged and dissolved, like he's falling in every direction at once--

\--and Neville is feather-light touching his arm and everything stops, and the world turns bright and Draco's smile is only a little shaky.

~

Dean is eleven and the swooping owl almost hits him and the falling letter actually hits except he's eight and it's not a letter it's rocks and, no, he's seventeen and it's a mask, a Death Eater mask, falling free and the man says, the boy says, the boy is chanting that word, the bad word, rocks flying, and the owl too, the owl is the whitest thing he's ever seen, glowing, the letter too, and he reads it, thinks I'm a, I'm really a-- and Daddy's holding him, he's got Daddy's shirt messy but Daddy's holding him and there are questions and through the sobs he tries to tell them about the boy, the boy with the rocks, the boy called me, he called me a, he called me-- and Nott pushes him back and down, hands at his throat and head over the edge, spits the word, the m-word (the n-word) (the w-word) into his face, stones rattling free and whistling as they pass him, one cuts his cheek, and still the boy is chanting, go home, but he is home and he doesn't understand, it's not supposed to be this way, it's not supposed to be real, and he remembers dancing toys and jeering boys and the hands at his throat and yelling, there's so much yelling, it's unreal, the whole stadium erupting, Dean balanced on his father's shoulders above them, the owl swooping above him, shapes above him in the black, and in three different times and places, three different people are yelling his name, and Nott goes blasting over the edge as his mother appears in the doorway as his father appears in the street, and Colin is asking him if he's alright and did Dean see that, Colin did that, just like Harry, swish and flick of the wand, swish and flick of the brush, and mother is telling him something but he's too interested in the man with her and his beard and his robes and especially his wand and Daddy is telling them that it's a secret, it's a treat, and sneaking him in through the back gate, sneaking him into the stands and he's so close he could touch the players and in the closing seconds West Ham come from behind and slam it past a totally outmatched keeper and Dean thinks, magic, this is magic, and the crowd goes wild.

~

Sprawled in gold, scarlet teardrop hanging at her throat and hair up but casual, Narcissa firmly holds the line between decadent and obscene. In lose shirt and tight pants, the easel between them, Dean holds his palette and his brush. Naked piano rises around them, notes crystallising in the air. He does not know the name of the piece, has just raided Seamus' surprisingly eclectic collection of musicstones and set it going with a quick Sonorus charm. In his head Narcissa is still standing in his doorway, asking "How do you want me?" On his sofa Narcissa just barely moves one leg, inhales. There's charcoal on his fingers and an outline of her on the canvas and colours mix themselves on his palette, his moving on their own accord and his eyes go back to her, back and back, always to her and that voice is still whispering in his ears, that scent, honey and smoke and some deep, dark spice he can't quite identify, that scent plagues him still. Narcissa exhales, slow closes her eyes, almost smiles. Dean keeps forgetting to breathe. She assaults his senses. They are talking, he recognises this from the movement of her lips and anyway, he can feel the words in his throat even if he has no idea what they are, but it doesn't seem important compared to the sight of her, the sound of her, the scent of her, the overwhelming need to touch her, to taste her, and suddenly his hands are empty and the easel is behind him and he is down before her, kneeling, genuflexion, and her smile is somehow both devilish and beatific.

~

Like so much in this drab, heavy world, the painting disgusts Narcissa, fascinates and disgusts; she can feel her face twitch and all the dots look like insects, like ants, like flies crawling, like shit stains on silk sheets, like fingers touching her, turning her, unfolding her along those unrelenting lines and degrading curves, opening her up to the core, all those insects tearing her into pieces, shredding her, carrying her self away, a feast of filth, and her fists clench, cheeks flush, red descending across her chest, and she turns and sees him and sees he is, he has the unmitigating gall to be looking at her, looking at her with his, and drawing, he's drawing, he's drawing her, this empty shape on a page, bleached out and underexposed, he's drawing her hollow, he's stealing her and she has cried out before she knows it, whip crack syllables and they're eye to eye and everything stops.

~

Fingers trail down her spine, squeeze a buttock, caress a hip, and he rolls her over, back on top, slow, deep thrusting, bends his head down to kiss her. She turns her face away, eyes open. Motion stops. He looks at her until she looks at him, blank, a cipher, and he pulls out though neither are even close to done, pulls out, rolls over, and lies next to her.

Breathes.

Narcissa does not speak.

Time passes.

Dean says to the ceiling, "It's done, isn't it."

"You're the artist," smile just lifting the corners of her mouth, "you tell me."

"I'm not talking about the painting."

"Aren't you."

Silence.

"Thus resolved," she murmurs, "all our questions merely statements..."

"Don't."

"Don't what?"

"Don't... just don't, okay?"

"I'm sorry."

"Oh, god!"

"I thought you knew. Nothing ever lasts."

"I thought... Is there-- nothing?"

"It was--" She can't find a word. "It was."

"A quick roll in the hay."

"Perhaps."

"Roll in the mud, more like."

"Perhaps."

"Bitch."

"Per--"

He's on top before she's done, his lips on hers, shoving a tongue through the final syllable, one hand on her neck, entwined in blonde curls pulled tight enough to hurt and the nimble fingers of his other hand dance over her, push down through hair seeking wetness, and he opens her legs with a forcible knee and enters her, fingers curling, teasing, pushing into her, pulling her into him, pressing skin against skin, and when he finally breaks for air, her eyes are cool and untouched.

"Nothing ever lasts," she repeats, and turns her head away.

~

(And she's bucking beneath him, clawing lines in his back, making little mewling sounds that under other circumstances he'd find impossibly cute, but right now the tension coil in the pit of his stomach is winding tighter and tighter and he's thinking, 2001, Premiership, thirty eight games played, won fifteen, drew eight, lost fifteen and so close and 2000, won ten, drew twelve, lost sixteen and oh! just a little, just a little longer and 1999 and eleven lost or was it won and her teeth close in his shoulder and he has to clench his own to stop shouting 'Goal!' and the laughter at this escapes him and she just smiles that almost smile and doesn't ask.)

~

The water hits hard and as hot as she can make it and she scrubs and scrubs and never feels clean.

~

Dean's rising, and so is Narcissa, Venus from the waters, Kali, Sekhmet, just an outline on the canvas waiting to be filled, and he falls to his knees before her, and she smiles, that ice smile, the Goddess smile, vicious and irresistible and probably fatal and lets the gown fall to her knees.

She says nothing; he hears: "I'm ready for my close-up, Mister Thomas."

And his hands close on her hips and her head goes back and her hands claw at his head and his tongue hits the mark over and over again.

~

Narcissa is forty-one and Dean is touching her hard enough to hurt.

Narcissa is thirty-seven and the silver letter opener makes almost no sound as it plunges through MacNair's eye and pierces his brain, his hand scrabbling, useless, at her breasts.

Narcissa is thirty-one and Lucius does not touch her at all.

Narcissa is twenty-nine and thinking about cats, about feral cats underfoot, thinking about heat, about auto-da-fé, and if she squints past the Nurse she can just about make out the Vatican and somewhere distant under that heavy Italian sympathy she can hear children singing and she won't won't won't think about the ruin between her thighs.

Narcissa is twenty-three and Draco is on his training broom, flitting outside the window, and her hands are clenched hard enough to rip the sheets and the Midwife is white and her breath catches in her throat and when she closes her eyes blood still pounds in the darkness and the tiny almost hand still twitches and she screams and screams until she stops.

Narcissa is nineteen and sweat drenched, pain still pulsing, dull roving ache, and they place the tiny bundle in her arms, still blood touched and so white beneath, skin translucent, almost transparent, eyes screwed up, so small, he's so small, weak, she could crush him, just like that, this strange little monkey and she wonders how anyone can think this is a miracle.

Narcissa is seventeen and she does not shudder in Lucius' awkward grip. She likes it rich and strange. And in her head his features blur, dissolve, until there is only fingers and tongue and cock and inconstant penetrating motion.

Narcissa is thirteen and wakes out of black and white dreams of paint and feathers and men without names and transient bodies, wakes to hazy darkness and silk sheets like flexible ice and sudden cramps, wakes and is wet when she touches herself and her fingers against her tongue taste raw and oddly like copper and she's licked them twice before she realises it is blood.

Narcissa is eleven and Daddy does not touch her, never touches her, will not even meet her eyes.

Narcissa is seven and five and three and sometimes she thinks she was born broken.

~

(And Dean's thoughts vacillate between the mechanical and the metaphorical and he thinks of fingers and paint, tongues and canvas, thinks of flat pack furniture, of heat, of inserting rod A into slot B, of light, of screws and hammers and a reckless, relentless plunging into summer.)

~

He put her on display for all the world to see and every time he looks at the painting he isn't sure why: it doesn't feel like revenge; it doesn't feel like regret; neither love nor loss nor lust. But something, definitely something.

And on the canvas she sprawls, robes open, gold coiling around her wrists, off her shoulders, outlining breasts and thighs, head tilted forward enough for the fall of white-blonde hair to erase all but a mystery of features, translucent alabaster skin somewhere between pearl and porcelain, Narcissa, stretched out, pure and gleaming on a too dark green couch, its springs gone, dust thick in the crowded, broken room beyond, cracked walls and mould and empty tarnished picture frames and lamps without glass and greasy flames.

And in the gallery she is suddenly there beside him and he can't think of a thing to say.

"It's good," she says. "I like it," she says. "It's very provocative," she says. "Perhaps I was hasty," she says. "A triptych could be interesting," she says. "Perhaps a series," she says. "Perhaps--"

"I don't understand you," he says.

She smiles. "And yet."

~

"Sure and you've got yourself a secret bird, yeah?" grins Seamus.

Dean looks up blearily from where he's slumped around the only non-empty bottle on the table. Seamus is looking appreciatively at the painting he has somehow left uncovered.

"Nice," says Seamus. "So who is she?"

Dean just shakes his head. Seamus slides into the seat opposite and grabs the bottle, holding it up to the light. "And yeh saved us a glass or two each, so you did!"

"Go me," mutters Dean and winces at the clink of glass.

"So, come on, Dean me lad, spill."

"It's nothing."

"Nothing doesn't leave scratches in your back, Dean." Seamus pulls the cork back out with his teeth, spits it onto the table as he pours. "Or teeth marks. And I doubt you've taking to wearing perfume."

"Seamus--"

"That's me name." He pours the drinks, pushes Dean a glass. "Hair of the dog that bit yeh."

Dean makes a face at that, but takes the glass. Seamus studies him across the table.

"So, what happened?"

"Don't wanna talk about it."

"Sure yeh do."

"Seamus--"

"Does mystery woman have a name?"

"Damn it, Finnigan!" Dean winced, grabbing at his head.

"Just asking, is all. Concerned. Lack of information has that effect, yeh know."

"It's... Oh, I dunno. Everything gets mixed. Events are all--" Dean waves a hand, shrugging. "Everything seemed to happen at once."

"And," grinned Seamus, "does everything have a name?"

Dean is all but silent. "Narcissa."

He does not look up at the sudden weight of silence, and it is up to Seamus to repeat "Nar--?"

"Yeah."

"Narcissa... Malfoy?!"

"Yes, Seamus! Narcissa bloody Malfoy! Okay? I fucked Narcissa Malfoy!"

Another ringing silence. Dean empties his glass and fumbles for the bottle, plucking it from Seamus' limp fingers.

"I don't--" tries Seamus.

"Yeah, well," says Dean. "Me neither."

Another silence, another drink.

"You're shagging Malfoy's mother," mutters Seamus; looks up at Dean. "Yeh do know yeh shagging Malfoy's mother, yeah?"

Dean moans, hiding his head under his arms.

~

Malfoy Manor moves of its own accord, shifts and slides around them to the tune of some secret song. Narcissa does not mind, her days are empty and she is content to wonder; Lucius just strides and the house anticipates, delivering his destination by the swiftest of routes. Tonight they find themselves in the same bedroom. The four poster is turned down. Lucius creases virgin sheets, perched on the edge to pull on his black jackboots.

"And how is the Beast?" asks Narcissa, floating from bathroom to mirror, gown flowing around her.

Lucius growls a response as his boots lace themselves, stomps till he feels most comfortable, summons his long black cloak. The material is heavy, whispering in the air as he slings it over his shoulders, the silver serpent clasps pulling tight at his throat.

Faint laughter flutters around Narcissa; she turns her lipstick a shade lighter of pink.

"I'll be gone all night," he says.

"It's always darkest before the dawn." She smiles at her reflection and gestures her eyelashes thicker and longer.

He ignores her, pulls something from a hidden pocket and enlarges it with a word, slips it on. When he speaks, his voice is guttural, distorted. "I've set the wards. Don't wait up."

"Neither up nor down," she agrees. "My regards to your master."

Lucius pulls his hood down and in the shadow all she sees are masks.

~

"Does all communication have to be in fancy Zen poems?" asks Dean, meaning to be rhetorical, sounding bitter.

Narcissa does not speak, rather, does not speak words; the robe slides down around her feet and she takes his jaw in her hand, tilts his face to the light, a cool assessment that makes Dean think of porcelain vases and cut jewels and auctions and he grabs her wrist and twists and later he will kiss the bruises and try for regret and Narcissa will just smile and leave and anyway charms can so easily hide the matching marks on her breasts and thighs, the taint he has left upon her skin.

~

"I don't know how it started," Dean tells Seamus. "I don't know how to end it."

"Quickly or never," says Seamus and empties his glass, looking away.

~

(And Narcissa thinks about babies, about her pretty, broken, babies, about the mess between her thighs, all black and red and white and gold.)

~

"Please," he says. "Call me Dean."

"Narcissa Malfoy," she says.

Their hands touch.

~

And in the afterwards he paints, and it's all abstract and nothing is revealed or resolved, no moment of epiphany, all crescendo and no climax, just people rutting in the dust, just people, past, present and future; and here's Harry because everything is about Harry even when it isn't; and here's Colin, triumphant on the tower and here, six feet under with a medal so that's something at least; here abides Seamus and his even keel and easy smile and his ever full flask of Guinness; here's Pansy and Gregory, slow flirting in the half light; and West Ham claws back from relegation to the relieved cheers of the crowd; and here's mirror eyed Draco and gleeful shouting and, oh, it's Professor, is it, Longbottom, and the spare key to Greenhouse five; here in the echo of a wand flash Lucius trembles between fear and lust; and here and here and here is Dean, somewhere between every where and when; and here's gold flecked Narcissa, panting in the rain; Narcissa in the gallery; Narcissa in the studio; Narcissa in his bed; Narcissa in his arms; and here're the boys who called names and the men who tried to kill him and his teachers and his friends and all those strangers who somehow know his name; here's his wand and here's his brush but mostly, here's Dean, and here's Narcissa, and Dean and Narcissa and forever here, on the canvas, everything, all at once.

~

Swish and flick. The painting's done.


End file.
